Prehospital Care Pearls and Pitfalls

Today's prehospital care provider will be confronted with a wide variety of medical and traumatic emergencies, will need to possess a strong foundation of medical knowledge, and will be using a large armamentarium of interventions and treatments. It is with this in mind that we have prepared this book. Prehospital Care--Pearls and Pitfalls, is a unique, stimulating, and easy-to-read way, provide practical information applicable to the prehospital setting and help the prehospital emergency care provider be prepared to manage the myriad of emergency and non- emergency situations that he or she will be called upon to assist. The past four decades have seen a remarkable evolution in the delivery of prehospital care. Where once the only therapy available for an out-of-hospital emergency medical situation was a ride to the hospital at a speed limited only by the vehicle you were in and the driving conditions at the time, now much of the interventional capability of the emergency department has been moved into an ambulance staffed with highly trained individuals who can bring to the patient the sophisticated medical care needed at the point of first contact with the health care delivery system.